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Post by coinilius on Jul 25, 2017 6:38:35 GMT -5
Kanigher also wrote Wonder Woman for years, even if he wasn't always the best, during a period where it would have been a very thankless task - he came back to the character on a number of occasions as well, also for better or for worse, but to be attached to the character for more than twenty years he must have had some affection or sense of duty towards the property.
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Post by Rob Allen on Jul 25, 2017 12:20:58 GMT -5
It always seemed to me that the only thing Kanigher liked about Wonder Woman was the paycheck he got for filling the pages.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 25, 2017 17:22:39 GMT -5
Kanigher also wrote Wonder Woman for years, even if he wasn't always the best, during a period where it would have been a very thankless task - he came back to the character on a number of occasions as well, also for better or for worse, but to be attached to the character for more than twenty years he must have had some affection or sense of duty towards the property. I have a dear friend that thinks the same way like you do here and that's why he had a moral obligation to do Wonder Woman in more ways than one and I felt he should had quit sooner and the twenty years that he spent on it was too long and most fans of Wonder Woman feels the same way like I do. Thanks for sharing your points on Kanigher. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 25, 2017 21:00:52 GMT -5
Kanigher also wrote Wonder Woman for years, even if he wasn't always the best, during a period where it would have been a very thankless task - he came back to the character on a number of occasions as well, also for better or for worse, but to be attached to the character for more than twenty years he must have had some affection or sense of duty towards the property. Kanigher despised Wonder Woman. He only took the job as part of a package deal: he was promoted to editor in the late '40s on the condition he took Wondy off of Sheldon Mayer's hands (Mayer also disliked the character and loathed her creator). He stuck with it all those years because A) DC was contractually obligated to publish the book lest the rights revert to the Marston estate, B) nobody else at DC wanted to do it, and C) though a brilliant writer when engaged in his work, Kanigher could also, as Rob notes above, be a shameless whore, writing strictly for the paycheck. He was so cynical about the strip that when he took it back over after the Sekowsky run, he recycled old scripts from the late '40s/early '50s, terrible stories totally out of sync with the '70s market. Cei-U! Can you tell I have very little respect for the man? |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 25, 2017 21:04:51 GMT -5
I love learning from you folks. This is a fascinating discussion.
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Post by coinilius on Jul 26, 2017 2:25:48 GMT -5
Kanigher also wrote Wonder Woman for years, even if he wasn't always the best, during a period where it would have been a very thankless task - he came back to the character on a number of occasions as well, also for better or for worse, but to be attached to the character for more than twenty years he must have had some affection or sense of duty towards the property. Kanigher despised Wonder Woman. He only took the job as part of a package deal: he was promoted to editor in the late '40s on the condition he took Wondy off of Sheldon Mayer's hands (Mayer also disliked the character and loathed her creator). He stuck with it all those years because A) DC was contractually obligated to publish the book lest the rights revert to the Marston estate, B) nobody else at DC wanted to do it, and C) though a brilliant writer when engaged in his work, Kanigher could also, as Rob notes above, be a shameless whore, writing strictly for the paycheck. He was so cynical about the strip that when he took it back over after the Sekowsky run, he recycled old scripts from the late '40s/early '50s, terrible stories totally out of sync with the '70s market. Cei-U! Can you tell I have very little respect for the man? I did a bit of googling before posing earlier because I was looking for anything that said what Kanigher's feelings were on the character but couldn't find anything, which was why I tried to be cagey at the end (and certainly, I wasn't trying to suggest that he was writing A Grade material for the book). Funnily enough, I quickly found something today which mentions how Kanigher never liked the character (as well as other interesting information about Marston and Wonder Woman) at: www.npr.org/2015/07/10/421464118/the-man-behind-wonder-woman-was-inspired-by-both-suffragists-and-centerfolds |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 8:41:06 GMT -5
Cei-U! ... I did not know that Kanigher despised Wonder Woman and this information that you shared with all of us was totally unexpected and revealing.
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Post by MDG on Jul 26, 2017 10:50:17 GMT -5
Cei-U! ... I did not know that Kanigher despised Wonder Woman and this information that you shared with all of us was totally unexpected and revealing. Apart from the gooniness of Metal Men, I've read very few Kanigher superhero stories that I've enjoyed. When I started re-reading a lot of 60s DCs in the 80s, it turned out that a couple of Batman (I think) stories I thought were lame as a kid were by him. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 26, 2017 11:01:13 GMT -5
I'm not sure there was much of anything Kanigher didn't hate. For a lot of people of his generation comics were a job...period. He certainly appears to have been of that mindset. I'm not recalling off-hand any interviews I've read with Kanigher himself. But I've read dozens that mention him and he comes off as, at best, grumpy and opinionated, and at worst, a tool. And it's absolutely clear from those interviews that Kurt is completely right. He despised Wonder Woman.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2017 11:25:12 GMT -5
Thanks MDG and Slam Bradley for your comments here.
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Post by Rob Allen on Jul 26, 2017 13:18:41 GMT -5
Tony Isabella has written about working briefly with Bob Kanigher. Of course I can't find the piece now to quote from it, but what I recall is that Tony edited Young Love for a few months. Kanigher had written a story in a recent issue that got a very positive response from readers, so Tony asked him for a sequel. Tony had heard stories of Kanigher's grumpiness, but the two of them got along fine. The sequel script was completed on time and was just as good as the first one. Tony's conversations with Kanigher led him to conclude that Bob didn't respect people who read nothing but comic books. Since Tony was an omnivorous reader and capable of discussing many topics outside of comics, Bob was cordial.
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Jul 26, 2017 16:30:36 GMT -5
Tony's conversations with Kanigher led him to conclude that Bob didn't respect people who read nothing but comic books. Since Tony was an omnivorous reader and capable of discussing many topics outside of comics, Bob was cordial. That seems consistent with a lot of the first generation of comic writers who lived to see the hobby evolve into a serious past-time in the 1970s. They had no idea grown men and women would be analyzing and admiring what they considered to have been disposable and somewhat embarrassing work. I keep dredging up this quote from Bob Haney that I originally found in writing my Teen Titans reviews: So many of them struggled to respect a person who devoted his or herself to such "junk". After all, comics weren't around when these guys grew up. They had no nostalgic love for them, and most who weren't Will Eisner had no respect for the genre either. I'd imagine it's a little like wanting to talk to a Burger King fry cook about their bold decisions in flipping the patties during work eight years earlier. Even a guy like Neal Adams, who clearly took pride in his work, has made it clear in the few times I've worked with him at conventions that he doesn't understand the love; he just knows to cash in on it. (1) Catron, Michael. "The Comics Journal." Bob Haney Interviewed by Michael Catron Part Four (of Five) «. The Comics Journal, 10 Jan. 2011. Web. 21 July 2016. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jul 27, 2017 17:23:17 GMT -5
Tony's conversations with Kanigher led him to conclude that Bob didn't respect people who read nothing but comic books. Since Tony was an omnivorous reader and capable of discussing many topics outside of comics, Bob was cordial. That seems consistent with a lot of the first generation of comic writers who lived to see the hobby evolve into a serious past-time in the 1970s. They had no idea grown men and women would be analyzing and admiring what they considered to have been disposable and somewhat embarrassing work. I keep dredging up this quote from Bob Haney that I originally found in writing my Teen Titans reviews: So many of them struggled to respect a person who devoted his or herself to such "junk". After all, comics weren't around when these guys grew up. They had no nostalgic love for them, and most who weren't Will Eisner had no respect for the genre either. I'd imagine it's a little like wanting to talk to a Burger King fry cook about their bold decisions in flipping the patties during work eight years earlier. Even a guy like Neal Adams, who clearly took pride in his work, has made it clear in the few times I've worked with him at conventions that he doesn't understand the love; he just knows to cash in on it. (1) Catron, Michael. "The Comics Journal." Bob Haney Interviewed by Michael Catron Part Four (of Five) «. The Comics Journal, 10 Jan. 2011. Web. 21 July 2016. I have so much more respect for that - adults doing a job - than I do the current crop of comic creators (he alliterated) who often are living out childhood fantasies and seem like they're still stuck in childhood. Current (as in published during my lifetime) superhero books feel a tad pathetic, honestly. Golden and Silver and sooooommmmmetimes bronze age creators feel a lot more adult to me. And you could read war comics by people who had actually been to war! (Granted, *I'm* an adult that's still obsessed with superheroes. But I wouldn't want to read MY Superman comics, either!) |
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Post by shaxper on Jul 27, 2017 22:09:53 GMT -5
I have so much more respect for that - adults doing a job - than I do the current crop of comic creators (he alliterated) who often are living out childhood fantasies and seem like they're still stuck in childhood. Current (as in published during my lifetime) superhero books feel a tad pathetic, honestly. Golden and Silver and sooooommmmmetimes bronze age creators feel a lot more adult to me. And you could read war comics by people who had actually been to war! (Granted, *I'm* an adult that's still obsessed with superheroes. But I wouldn't want to read MY Superman comics, either!) As with most things, there's a balance to be found somewhere between the two. There's a reason I don't tend to enjoy most comics written before 1970. The Bronze Age is when the first generation of comic book fans got into the industry, and they brought a passion and vision that most of the previous generations of writers just couldn't see. Even Stan and Jack feel stale by comparison, IMHO. Some writers and artists are definitely too fanboyish and immature in their approaches, but others truly understand the power and the potential of the medium because they were on the receiving end of it first. |
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jul 27, 2017 22:49:05 GMT -5
I think what you see as passion I see as being kinda juvenile, I guess. By the '80s you got these Claremont/Wolfman style books that were completely humorless, only worked on one level*, and didn't really reflect any knowledge of the world except for comics and "geek" media. (Aliens, the Avengers, Doctor Who) They were competently produced but (IMO) as full of "vision" as your average daytime soap opera.
sAnd those were way better than what most of their pals were doing!
Or I just think that comics by kids are raised on comics are more predictable and less interesting than comics by the earlier generation - who had a more diverse and wide-ranging set of influences. 'Course (and unsurprisingly) most of my favorite mainstream books of the '80s and '90s were written by British dudes, who weren't raised on superheroes.
But I also think the comics code really kicked the legs out from American comics as an art form, and you can definitely see THAT in silver age comics. Like Kurtzman was definitely pointing the way towards serious, adult comics but then mainstream comics weren't *allowed* to follow up! So even Silver Age books depress me. Eventually the indies followed up on what Kurtzman was doing (and produced some actual worthwhile art) but the mainstream never did.
* As opposed to Stan Lee's post modern pop art, where the creators -and even the fans - were very much characters in the narrative. I look at comics as an art form and I really focus on how they relate to other (especially visual) arts. The Marvel books of the '60s felt very much in line with what, say, Warhol was doing. And I'm sad that the relationship between mainstream comics and "high" art pretty much went away in the '70s.
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